While it is early in poll and voting analyses to draw any final conclusions, one overlooks the importance of staying on message down the home stretch at their own peril. This obviously includes making the right priorities in determining how the short time allotted to candidates in campaign rallies (and the television coverage of those speeches) is spent–in short, which messages should be stressed. I would argue that Hillary contributed mightily to her own demise based on some of the data that has been revealed even this early, as well as my own observations–made now and in the past. Sure, FBI Director Comey’s meddling in the election where and when he shouldn’t have no doubt played a big part in the outcome, as did latent racism among the large cohort of white, low educated, men and women. (More on the latter gender-group’s voting patterns in a moment). Those were known going into the final ten or so days, and despite those influences, a solid victory was still in reach by...

After having become the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, the latest polls show that Donald Trump has received a bump in the polls, and is nearly tied with Hillary Clinton. Since Hillary held a large, if not commanding, lead over Trump just a couple of weeks ago, this has many Clinton supporters in near panic. What does this recent surge by Donald really mean? For one thing upon becoming either party’s standard-bearer, candidates usually receive a bump in the polls. The same thing happens following the party conventions in the summer. These latter poll jumps are most often short-lived as one party convention is followed in short order by the other’s. However, understanding the bump that the winning candidate gets in the polls upon becoming a party’s presumptive nominee is a bit more complicated, since there is often a significant period when the primary races are over between parties. Let’s take look at the mechanics of this kind of poll bump. During the primary campaign, a significant number of supporters of the...

Trump seems to blame everything that goes bad on someone else. He’s non-stop in his blames of Obama, most of his Republican competitors for the nomination, Hillary, China, Japan, Mexico, and of course The Media, for a number of Donaldsins–but he’ll be the greatest diplomat we’ve ever had. Here’s just a sampling of his blames: Obama: for the riots in Baltimore; for Ebola in the U.S.; for “intentionally letting an American soldier rot in a Mexican jail”; for Russia beating the United States in the Olympics; for high oil prices (“OPEC leaders are laughing at us); for (along with Mental Illness) the Virginia Shootings; for the Seattle Seahawks losing final play call in the Super Bowl; for poor race relations in the U.S.; (Trump accused Obama of being a Muslim, then he blamed Obama) for the audience’s questioner for being a plant; Hillary: for ISIS; For his own birtherism stance; for starting the birther movement; for blaming him for the Charleston riots (which she didn’t); for Univision for pulling his Miss USA and Miss Universe shows...

Without an early debate, or a perceived competitive contest, there has been less media attention, and fewer national polls of the Democratic race. Most of the major pollsters were two to three weeks outdated on the Democratic side by the time the media were focusing on the effects of some outrageous “Donaldisms” on the Republican electorate. Those older polls showed Hillary with a commanding lead over Bernie Sanders, and beating all of the Republican contenders handily–with her early numbers when matched against Donald Trump among her highest. Conversely, Bernie Sanders, with low name-recognition was shown doing much poorer in those match-ups against the Republican hopefuls than Hillary…Though I agree with him on many issues, I can’t imagine Bernie Sanders’ status as a Socialist allowing him to win the general election for president. America just isn’t ready for that. It would be a George McG0vern-Richard Nixon race all over again.

Last week CNN observed that Americans may soon be asked to choose between giving up some of their civil liberties for greater security. This is what is known as a zero-sum question. Either get more security while giving up civil liberties or hold on to one’s civil liberties and get less security. Either/or. Now it should be apparent that the real world situation isn’t quite so zero-sum. It is possible to give up one’s liberties and still not get security or conversely not give up those civil liberties and still get the security. And there are a whole slew of gray steps in between, such as giving up just a few civil liberties and getting the security needed, or holding on to one’s civil liberties and getting only slightly less security. Obviously there are many intermediate shades of gray possible. But the issue is often, as in this example, posed in terms of a zero-sum game. Which, of course, is deceptive and can obscure the very existence of all...